I market hard things.
Deep tech can't afford to be misunderstood. I am a Marketing and GTM advisor for dual-use and defence-adjacent ventures, closing the gap between what they've built and what the market understands.
translation gap
Deep tech moves faster than the language used to describe it.
Technical advantage does not automatically create commercial momentum. The companies building the most interesting things are often the hardest to understand — and that gap has real consequences.
When investors go quiet after a strong pitch, it's rarely the science. When sales cycles drag on longer than they should, it's rarely the product. When talented people struggle to explain what your company does in an interview, it's rarely the team. The story is broken. And a broken story slows everything.
That distance is the commercial translation gap — and it's what I work to close.
Read the full definition →The Clarity Audit
Find out exactly where your story is losing them.
Most founders know something isn't landing. The Clarity Audit tells you precisely what — across five dimensions, in two minutes. For free.
Two minutes · Bespoke report · Optional debrief with me
How I Operate
Every engagement starts with a complimentary Clarity Audit.
A free two-minute diagnostic across five dimensions, and the entry point for every conversation. From there, there are three ways we can work together.
The Traction Accelerator
For founders ready to transform their entire commercial narrative.
The Clarity Engine
Positioning, category claim, messaging architecture, go-to-market logic and sales story. Everything we build lives in a client portal that stays yours after the engagement ends.
Activation
The Clarity Engine's output brought to life, across your website, pitch deck, investor materials and sales collateral.
The Narrative Accelerator
The fast, accessible way in.
Pitch deck reframe, one-page narrative summary, and a full redesign of your entire deck with two rounds of amends. Everything we build lives in a client portal that stays yours after the engagement ends.
The Defence Commercial Awareness Sprint
The Narrative Accelerator, built for defence. A defence-specific commercial narrative tuned to how Defence buys in the AUKUS era, a redesigned deck to carry it, one coaching session to deliver it, and a standing seat in an ongoing defence-founder group. $5,000. Two weeks.
Advisory
An embedded GTM and marketing partner for your executive team.
Fractional leadership built to maintain commercial momentum as you scale. Rather than managing freelancers or hiring an expensive full-time CMO too early, you get strategic direction and execution directed by a senior operator.
How we work together:
- Strategic rhythm: weekly executive check-ins and quarterly roadmap alignment to keep narrative and GTM execution tightly linked to growth targets.
- Active execution: hands-on leadership across marketing, positioning and market entry, supported by a central client portal for all assets.
- On-demand access: direct Slack access for real-time decisions, plus access to my vetted Operator Network across design, content, digital and government relations.
Free interactive tool
Navigating the Australian Defence Procurement Landscape.
The defence capability, acquisition and innovation ecosystem, drawn as one blueprint. Tick what describes you and your way through it lights up, node by node. Built for VC-backed deep tech and dual-use founders trying to work out where they actually enter the system.
Also in Field Notes: The $40,000 Stand, a defence trade show playbook →
"Murphy & Company has proven to be the missing link for our team as we look to scale our business. Chris' ability to understand our technology and potential and help translate that into easy-to-understand touchpoints has been invaluable."
"I knew what we were building was special. Murphy & Company made sure the people who matter understood it too. Chris sharpened our narrative, and as a result the doors that opened were ones I didn't even know how to knock on."
"We'd built something genuinely complex, an embedded renewable network across Australia's largest freight precinct, and Chris made it legible to the people who had to buy it. He turned a technical energy offer into a story a tenant could understand in one read. That work played a real part in getting multimillion-dollar agreements over the line."
Want to see the work behind the results?
Request a case study ↗
Meet the Principal
Fifteen years of cross-category growth, now applied to the companies that matter most.
The observation that brought me to this work is a simple one. The thinking that makes a complex idea land for a sceptical investor, an impatient customer, or an unfamiliar market is not new. It was being used every day inside the agencies and by the brands I had spent fifteen years working with.
But the founders who needed it most did not have access to it.
Working with Atomic Tessellator made that clear. Here was a company with genuine scientific advantage, a credible team, and technology that mattered. The problem was not the science. The story was not keeping up with it.
That gap is what Murphy and Company exists to close. I now work exclusively with founders in defence, dual-use and deep tech, applying the strategic and creative rigour developed across Grey London, Saatchi and Saatchi, The Hallway and G Squared, and clients including Google, Qantas and Toyota, to a category of problem that matters more. That rigour has moved real numbers: Qantas US bookings up 158% year on year, and BINGE to one million subscribers in eight months, twice as fast as the target.
I lead the strategy and stay close to the work. Where specialist execution is needed, I bring in a vetted bench of senior operators across tech PR, government relations, search and SEO, and web development.
- 47 creative and marketing effectiveness awards
- Marketing Academy scholar
- Unltd Ambassador
Latest thinking
When you spend the first twenty minutes of every meeting explaining what you do, you are not pitching. You are teaching. And teaching is not how you raise money.
FAQ
Before you reach out.
If customers don't immediately grasp what you've built, fundraising conversations stall at the narrative level, or your market presence doesn't yet match your technical capability — this is the right conversation to have. I work with founders and leadership teams at venture-backed companies in defence, dual-use and deep tech, where the technology is important but the story is hard.
If your product exists and you are in live conversations with investors or customers, you are not too early, and fixing the story now is cheaper than fixing it after a failed raise. If you are pre-product and still proving the science, you are probably too early for a paid engagement, and I will tell you that on the first call. Take the Clarity Audit either way. It is free and it will tell you where you stand.
That depends on where you are. If your story is broken and it's costing you in fundraising conversations, sales cycles or talent acquisition, the investment in fixing it almost always pays back quickly. If you're pre-product or still finding your feet technically, it might be too early. The engagements that work best are with founders who are venture-backed — not because of the funding itself, but because it signals a shared understanding of what commercial momentum needs to look like and the urgency to get there. The first conversation is free and I'll tell you honestly which camp you're in.
Every engagement starts with the Clarity Audit, a free two-minute diagnostic that maps where your story is losing the people who matter. Most founders find it surfaces exactly the problem they couldn't name.
From there, there are three ways we can work together. The Traction Accelerator is for founders ready to transform their entire commercial narrative. It starts with the Clarity Engine, a two to four week sprint that rebuilds your positioning, category claim, messaging architecture, go-to-market logic and sales story, priced at $25,000. From there, Activation brings that output to life across your website, pitch deck, investor materials and sales collateral, scoped per engagement.
For founders who want a fast, accessible way in, the Narrative Accelerator delivers a pitch deck reframe, a one-page narrative summary and a full redesign of your deck with two rounds of amends, in one week, for $5,000. And for founders who want an embedded GTM and marketing partner, Advisory includes a minimum weekly check-in, a client portal, Slack access and access to my Operator Network, starting at $5,000 a month.
I keep the practice deliberately small, which means every engagement gets real attention rather than being handed off. The first conversation is always a straightforward call to establish fit.
With rigour. Many of my clients operate in sensitive sectors where discretion is not a preference — it is a requirement. Every engagement operates under mutual NDA as standard, and I understand that some of the most important work I do will never be publicly attributable. The practice is structured accordingly, with all communications and materials encrypted and secured as a matter of course.
Get in touch
Ready to talk? I'll take it from here.
If you've done the Clarity Audit and want to debrief, or you'd rather just start with a conversation — use the form. I review every enquiry personally and respond within one business day.
hello@murphyandcompany.com.auForm or email — both come straight to me.